Erin Stein will join Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group as publisher of a new, yet-to-be-named new imprint on December 1, reporting to Jon Yaged. Her imprint will focus on branded publishing and new content creation, as well as acquiring original commercial fiction and picture books. Previously she was editorial director of branded, licensed, and media tie-in publishing for Little, Brown Children’s. “MCPG has enjoyed fabulous growth over the past several years, and we are always exploring new ways to accelerate our growth. Erin’s phenomenal track record with licensed publishing and new content creation makes her the perfect fit for us. I could not be happier to welcome Erin to the team,” Yaged said in the announcement. Stein added: “I am thrilled to be joining the stellar group at Macmillan. The new imprint will be a creative playground for both developing new characters and properties and also working with partners to expand the worlds of existing brands. The vision is to give each book I publish multiple opportunities to succeed across a variety of mediums.”
At Fodor’s Travel, Roxanne Chen has been promoted to director, product management for Fodors.com, reporting to Amanda D’Acierno.
At Metropolitan Books, Grigory Tovbis has been promoted to editor.
Jeremy Nurnberg has joined Parragon as senior director of sales, North America. He was vp, sales at Charlesbridge. Veronica Aragon has joined the company as senior manager, warehouse clubs and custom publishing. She was custom and premium sales manager at Disney Publishing.
Philadelphia-based publisher and distributor Casemate Group has acquired trade book distributor International Publishers Marketing, based in Dulles, VA, with the deal set to close on January 1, 2015. IPM director Jane Graf will join Casemate on that date.
In prize news, the shortlists were announced in five categories for the UK’s Costa Awards. Samuel Johnson Nonfiction winner H Is For Hawk picks up another nomination in the biography category (it’s also in contention for the Waterstones’ book of the year). The nominees in the two fiction categories are:
Novel
The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus)
House of Ashes, Monique Roffey (Simon & Schuster UK)
How to Be Both, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
Nora Webster, Colm Tóibín (Viking UK)
First Novel
A Song for Issy Bradley, Carys Bray (Hutchinson)
Academy Street, Mary Costello (Canongate)
Elizabeth Is Missing, Emma Healey (Viking UK)
Chop Chop, Simon Wroe (Viking UK)